


A List of What is Wrong

by sicklullabies



Category: Ambiguous Fandom, British Actor RPF, Original Work, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Cutting, F/M, One-Shot, Self-Harm, Songfic, Suicide, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:36:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sicklullabies/pseuds/sicklullabies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"between the lines of fear and blame<br/>you begin to wonder why you came."</p><p>~ "how to save a life" by the fray.</p><p>He notices her scars on their first official date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A List of What is Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> In which he is disturbed at his new girlfriend's story. 
> 
> This is one of my latest short stories. Originally posted on Tumblr, (I think?) September 2012. Can still be read there if you are so inclined. This was written as a prompt fill over at thfrustration.tumblr.com, which requested a songfic to "How to Save a Life" by The Fray, with the theme of suicide. It was written with Tom Hiddleston in mind as the guy, but really he can be anyone; same with the girl. 
> 
> Rated Mature for mentions of abuse, self-harm/cutting, and death/suicide.

**I.**

He notices them on their first official “date.” They’re at a restaurant near her flat, at her suggestion, making polite conversation. She reaches out and takes a piece of bread from the basket at the center of the table, the dim lights making every inch of her skin glint. 

Especially the scars. There are three of them: small, dark red lines right along the inside of her wrist. They’re thin, neatly carved into her otherwise unblemished skin. Her hand immediately withdraws from the breadbasket and goes back into her lap, where it stays for the rest of the night.

He doesn’t say anything.

**II.**

The next time he sees her, a few days later, there are two on her other wrist as well. 

**III.**

She doesn’t explain them until about five months later. The two of them are officially seeing each other now, and they’ve decided on a night in with take-out containers and a stack of DVDs. 

What surprises him is how naturally and **casually** she does it. She curls up against him on the sofa, her head on his shoulder and her breath warm against his neck. They stay like this for a few minutes, until she takes the remote control off of his thigh and pauses the television. 

“Do you want to see my scars?” 

Half of her face is glowing from the light from the screen, illuminating her eyes and leaving a cartoonish white glare bouncing off of her short hair. She sounds—and at this angle, looks—like a proud child and doesn’t wait for a response before she rolls up the sleeves of her shirt.

His wide eyes dart between her arms and her face. He keeps licking his lips and opening his mouth, as if he’s about to speak, but he never does. She smiles weakly and caresses the back of his hand, then takes hold of his wrist and brings his fingers to rest on the lines on her arm. 

They feel like nothing more than tiny bumps, and he can’t stop touching them. She lets go of his arm and buries her face back in his neck.

It’s a coping mechanism for her, she tells him. Her stress, her self-loathing, her insecurity, she puts all of it into her cutting. The first scar, she says while holding one of his fingers over it, is from when she was fifteen and her mother had beaten her for the first time. She hated herself, she felt ugly. So she “ruined” the only thing she had control of. It’s more faded than the other scars, although the line is still ingrained in her skin, clear for anyone to see.

She moves his finger down on her arm, towards her elbow, stopping over the middle scar. The second is from the day her first long-term boyfriend broke up with her; her nineteenth birthday. The line is slightly jagged, her hands shaking from her tears while she pulled out a razor blade and sliced into her arm. 

He moves his finger to the third scar without her having to do it for him. This one is from the day her younger sister died, only about six months ago. She was eighteen and hit by a car the night of her high school graduation. This line is smooth and even, like it was done after the news had been delivered, the tears had been shed, the shock had passed. 

She is crying by the time she’s done talking, wetting his neck and her cheeks. He holds her tightly against him, alternating between whispering soothing words into her hair and kissing along her arm, over the scars and around her wrist and back again. 

“You are beautiful,” he says. He doesn't say anything more, doesn't accuse her of lying, even as the two scars from a few weeks ago poke out ever-so-slightly from underneath the sleeve covering her other arm. **She hiccups.**

 **IV.**

They make love for the first time that night. Usually he’s the one to resist; in his mind, most of his relationships have been ruined by moving into sex too early. But this time is different; after her confession, he can tell that she needs comfort. She needs to be assured she’s loved.

It’s slow and gentle, and she automatically curls into him when he lays back down next to her. Her fingers trail lightly down his bare chest, tracing patterns into his skin. He drapes his arm over her shoulder and shifts in the bed. 

And there she goes again, dropping another offhand comment that means so much more to him than she seems to think. “You’re the first person I told.” A kiss to his neck; her lips are warm and slightly chapped, but he shivers with pleasure at the contact nonetheless. “And I haven’t cut since I met you.” 

He wonders if she hears his whispered “I love you” before she falls asleep in his arms. 

**V.**

The next morning, he notices that there are four more scars on her back, red and angry and very visible against her skin. Fresh wounds. 

New.

She lied.

**VI.**

The unfamiliar lights should have been his first clue, as her street is generally quiet and peaceful: the stereotypical semi-suburban neighborhood, with neatly-kept lawns in front of brightly-painted houses, picture-perfect apartment buildings.

With swarms of police cars in front.

The flashing lights—quick successions of red, white, and blue splattering over the red-brick condominium complex like a bad painting of itself—makes his heart jump up into his throat and his breath quicken, his skin getting prickly and hot.

All of the puzzle pieces don’t slide into place until an ambulance whips past him, siren wailing a loud, piercing note. 

**VII.**

She was alone on the floor, draped in it, surrounded by them, coated in warm, sticky blood. 

The line was vertical this time, right down the center of her forearm, cutting into the vein. The blade, sitting in its own pool of blood, was left discarded on the bathroom floor. It was much, much deeper than her others. Even if they had gotten there in time, she couldn’t have been saved.

She was twenty-seven.

 **VIII.**

He goes home from the hospital that day with a heart full of too many emotions and a head full of words left unsaid. 

He doesn’t even take off his jacket before he goes for his razor blades.

 

-fin.-


End file.
